Description
Book SynopsisThe concept, practice, institution and appearance of ‘the state’ have been hotly debated ever since the emergence of history as a discipline within modern scholarship. The field of medieval Islamic history, however, has remained aloof from most of these debates. Rather it tends to take for granted the particularity of dynastic trajectories within slow-changing bureaucratic contexts. Trajectories of State Formation promotes a more critical and connected understanding of state formation in the late medieval Sultanates of Cairo and of the Timurid, Turkmen and Ottoman dynasties. Projecting seven case studies onto a broad canvas of European and West-Asian research, this volume presents a trans-dynastic reconstruction, interpretation and illustration of statist trajectories across fifteenth-century Islamic West-Asia. The contributors are: Georg Christ, Kristof D’hulster, Jan Dumolyn, Albrecht Fuess, Dimitri J. Kastritsis, Beatrice Forbes Manz, John L. Meloy, Jo Van Steenbergen, and Patrick Wing.
Table of Contents Acknowledgements List of Figures, Tables and Maps List on Contributors Introduction: State Formation in the Fifteenth Century and the Western Eurasian Canvas: Problems and Opportunities Jo Van Steenbergen Maps Part 1: Whither the Fifteenth Century? 1 From Temür to Selim: Trajectories of Turko-Mongol State Formation in Islamic West-Asia’s Long Fifteenth Century Jo Van Steenbergen 2 Studying Rulers and States across Fifteenth Century Western Eurasia Jan Dumolyn and Jo Van Steenbergen Part 2: From Cairo to Constantinople: The Construction of West-Asian Centers of Power 3 The Road to the Citadel as a Chain of Opportunity: Mamluks’ Careers between Contingency and Institutionalization Kristof D’hulster 4 The Syro-Egyptian Sultanate in Transformation, 1496–1498: Sultan al-Nasir Muhammad b. Qaytbay and the Reformation of mamlūk Institutions and Symbols of State Power Albrecht Fuess 5 Tales of Viziers and Wine: Interpreting Early Ottoman Narratives of State Centralization Dimitri Kastritsis Part 3: From Khwaf to Alexandria: The Accommodation of West-Asian Peripheries of Power 6 Iranian Elites under the Timurids Beatrice F. Manz 7 The Judges of Mecca and Mamluk Hegemony John L. Meloy 8 The Syrian Commercial Elite and Mamluk State-Building in the Fifteenth Century Patrick Wing 9 Settling Accounts with the Sultan: Cortesia, Zemechia and Venetian Fiscality in Fifteenth Century Alexandria Georg Christ Index
